THE FAMILY OF Vester Flanagan, the shooter in the Virginia live TV case, have expressed their “deepest condolences” to the families of the victims.
In a statement, they said:
It is with heavy hearts and deep sadness that we express our deepest condolences to the families of Alison Parker and Adam Ward. We are also praying for the recovery of Vicki Gardner.
Our thoughts and prayers at this time are with the victims’ families and the WBDJ7 NEWS family. Words cannot express the hurt that we feel for the victims.
The loved ones of the two slain journalists have also been speaking of their love for their partners.
Yesterday’s shooting occurred while Parker and Ward were broadcasting a live interview on the station WBDJ. Footage later appeared on social media accounts believed to belong to Flanagan which showed the gunman approaching the pair and shooting.
Parker was interviewing Vicki Gardner, head of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce, at the lakeside Bridgewater Resort near Roanoke.
Reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, both died. Gardner was injured in the back and is receiving treatment in hospital.
Flanagan, a former journalist at WDBJ – a CBS affiliate in Roanoke, Virginia – also went by the name Bryce Williams.
“Powder keg”
It has now emerged that Flanagan (41) said that he had been a “human powder keg… just waiting to go BOOM”.
The tragedy has renewed calls for tougher gun laws in the United States. Flanagan was said to have bought his gun legally.
“It breaks my heart every time you read or hear about these kinds of incidents,” President Barack Obama told an ABC affiliate in Philadelphia.
Life “flipped upside down”
The fiancee of cameraman Adam Ward says her life has been “flipped upside down.”
Melissa Ott, a producer at the station, was in the control room when the shooting happened and saw it unfold.
Ott was slated to soon start work at WSOC-TV, the ABC affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina. She posted on her Facebook page that her plans, and her life, were now on hold.
Starting new adventures with my fiance, new jobs, a new city. Getting married, having a family, buying a home. That’s now taken. I’m not ok. And I won’t be for a long time.
She says she is grateful for the outpouring of love and support she has received.
“I loved her so much”
The boyfriend of Parker said the two met at a Christmas party for WBDJ last year and hit it off. Their first date was New Year’s Day.
Chris Hurst is an anchor at the station. He said today that he made scrambled eggs and a smoothie for Alison Parker early Wednesday before her shift. He also packed her lunch.
I’d never done that before for any woman, for anyone, but I wanted to do it for Alison because I loved her so much and I just took so much joy in something so minor as cutting strawberries for her.
Hurst said they would text each other as they worked opposite shifts. She worked in the morning. He worked at night.
Her last message to him was “good night sweet boy.”
“It’s the last that I ever heard from her,” Hurst said.
I saw it before I went to sleep. And then a few hours later I woke up to some calls telling me to come to the station.
How they caught Vester Flanagan
Police identified Vester Flanagan as a person of interest in the on-air shootings based on a communication with a friend.
In seeking a search warrant for the car Flanagan was driving Wednesday, Virginia State Police had to give a magistrate in Fauquier (faw-KEER) County probable cause.
“Investigators identified Vestor Lee Flanagan II as a person of interested based on a text message sent to a friend making reference to having done something stupid,” police wrote.
Police said they put out a lookout for Flanagan and the car was spotted in Fauquier County.
“When troopers attempted to stop the vehicle, the subject operating the vehicle failed to yield and was observed to place an object to his head,” police wrote. Flanagan shot himself in the head and died at 1.26pm at Inova Fairfax Hospital.
A search warrant return for the car driven by Vester Flanagan on Wednesday in Fauquier County shows an inventory of the contents of the silver Chevrolet Sonic sedan. Police obtained the warrant and searched the car after they tried to pull Flanagan over. He ran off the road and shot himself, dying a short time later at a hospital.
Flanagan was traveling with a Glock pistol with multiple magazines and ammunition. He carried a white iPhone, as well as letters, notes, cards and a to-do list.
Police said they found a “briefcase w/3 license plates, wig, shawl, umbrella, sunglasses,” as well as a black hat.
Gun control
Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton also said that something has to be done about gun violence in America.
“I was so just stricken to think that these two young people doing the work you guys do every single day would be murdered on live television,” she told reporters, extending her sympathies to the family, friends and co-workers of those killed and injured.
We have got to do something about the gun violence in America. And I will take it on. There are many people who face it and know it, but then turn away because it’s hard.
It’s a very political, difficult issue in America but I believe we are smart enough, we are compassionate enough to figure out how to balance legitimate Second Amendment rights with preventative measures and control measures so that whatever motivated this murderer who eventually took his own life, we will not see more deaths.
The killing also raised questions about how the Internet provided a brief but unfiltered window on a horrific crime.
Healing and grieving
On WDBJ’s morning newscast today, they held a moment of silence 24 hours to the minute after Parker and Ward were killed.
“We will, over time, heal from this,” said a grief-stricken morning anchor, Kimberly McBroom, holding hands with two colleagues.
In New York, ABC News said it received a 23-page manifesto from a man identifying himself as Bryce Williams nearly two hours after the shooting.
In the rambling manifesto, Flanagan – who was sacked in 2013 by WDBJ — said he was sent over the edge by the June mass shooting of black worshippers at a church in South Carolina.
He described himself as a “human powder keg… just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”
Flanagan also complained in what he called a “Suicide Note for Friends and Family” of racial discrimination and bullying “for being a gay, black man”.
Jeffrey Marks, the station manager, said Flanagan was dismissed “after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore.”
Speaking on WDBJ today, he described the manifesto as “nonsense.”
Parker’s father, Andy Parker, made a plea for tougher gun laws after the murder of his daughter, who he described as “our bright, shining light.”
“We’ve got to do something about crazy people getting guns,” he told Fox News.
US lawmakers have been hesitant to enact tougher limitation on access to guns, in part because they are loath to anger voters who fiercely defend their constitutional right to bear arms.
- Additional reporting © AFP, 2015 and Associated Press
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